


Reminiscence of friendship

by Sweety_Mutant



Series: What if? The Great Escape [3]
Category: The Great Escape (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Movie Spoilers, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2813774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Ives hadn't died when Tom was discovered?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminiscence of friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nkrockz23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nkrockz23/gifts).



> Disclaimer: The movie is not mine (Obviously ^^). I only borrow the characters from the MGM and the real life persons and events belong to themselves.
> 
> * This is a commission for nkrockz23, who asked me to do a fic where Ives survives, so here it is! :D I hope you like it ^^
> 
> *contain spoilers
> 
> * Please forgive me for any mistakes I'm not a native English speaker.

 

 

It has been five years. Five years, and yet it felt like it was just yesterday that he had crawled out that stinking hole in the ground, and reclaimed his freedom. Five too long years in which he hadn't the chance to see his best friend. Five short, busy, years since Hilts had last put a foot on British soil. And today, he was going to change that.

He got up from his seat in the airport, grabbed his luggage, and as he installed himself in the plane that was taking him to London, memories from the first and last time he had crossed the Atlantic and flown eastward began coming back to him.

_How was it to cross an Ocean?_

He remembered the other fighters in the training camps, the crowded boats taking them to England, the constant fear of being attacked...

_Did you see England before the war?_

The first things he saw of England were the columns of smoke, darkening the green land… and London, the bright and beautiful mother city of so many wonders, London had been a burning corpse of its former splendor. He had seen nothing but the war that day.

_How was your first fight?_

Hilts still feels the air, electric with tension during the briefing the morning before their first mission, the grim faces of those who had already fought, who had lost something and yet came back… He still hears his plane's motor roaring as he took off, the sun shimmering in the sky, and the German plane approaching behind him… And as his enemy's aircraft fell away in flames, crashing in the sea, the horror of the war dawned upon him.

_When were you captured? Where? Were you injured in the crash?…_

With one last glance to the clouds below him, Hilts closed his eyes, a familiar voice and events from the past playing an odd motion picture in his mind.

Two months had passed, and one day, during a mission like all the others, Hilts saw the Messerschmitt too late. As he tried frantically to lose his pursuer in the clouds, another German plane joined the first and everything happened at once. The noise of the enemies' machine guns, the tremors as his aircraft was shot, the smoke filling his lungs, having just the time to grab his lucky baseball glove before it was eaten by the flames, the rush of adrenaline in his system, the parachute opening just like during the exercises…

And, when he touched the ground, he felt fear for the first time. With fragments of his plane falling around him and his mouth full of grime and blood; he realized what had happened. He was somewhere between eastern France and western Germany, with no means of going home. He had been shot down. And maybe, whispered a nasty voice, maybe he would never fly again.

He was still in shock when the motorcycles encircled him. Soldiers screamed something at him in German and he ran in the field, bullets missing his head by sheer luck. He didn't remember well how they caught him after that. The following days were a blur in his mind, like he wanted to forget it ever happened.

_How was your first camp? Did you try to escape on your way?_

When he arrived in his first camp, he started to plan an escape attempt. The Nazis would have to tie him down if they wanted to keep him in their prison camps! Unluckily, he was caught the morning after he broke out, and sent for the first time in the cooler. Twenty days later, as his eyes readjusted to daylight, he learned that another man from his squadron had been shot down and brought to this camp.

Time passed, Hilts repeated the same pattern, try to escape, get caught, spent days in the cooler, sit beside Goff without listening to him –though the presence of a known face was somewhat comforting-, plotting an escape, try to escape… every day the same as the one before. Then one morning, he learned that they were going to be transferred to another Stalag, situated on the Germany Poland border. An escape-proof camp. He smiled. Like this was going to stop him.

_Don't you miss your friends?_

Sitting on the hard floor of the cooler, Hilts had wanted to answer to this strange little scot he'd just encountered that he didn't had many friends. That people didn't' usually liked him that much, and that he was fine like that. But, on this first day in this new camp, a first day that would last twenty long ones, he was glad he had found someone who would help him pass the time. Especially someone who was as dedicated to escaping as him and would take the constant noise of his baseball for answers… even if he talked a little too much.

" _Sir? Can I see your tickets please?"_

The feminine voice put an abrupt end to his dream, and he jumped when a cool hand touched his shoulder, eyes opening and looking frantically around him.

"Sorry to have woken you sir, said a young air stewardess, but can you hand me your tickets?"

Hilts fumbled in his bag and handed the tickets to the young girl. She controlled them and gave them back to him.

"I'm sorry again to have woken you… do you want anything? Drinks, food, magazines?"

"No thanks, it's okay." Answered Hilts, flashing a smile to the stewardess before turning his head toward the window.

After her departure, feeling he wouldn't sleep again, he began remembering the camp with a smile. Their microcosm had been quite something… Horrible, yet with time he felt more and more nostalgia.

He remembered the small tasks he had done for the X Organisation, while trying to talk Roger into accepting that Ives escaped with him, but the man was as unmovable as a rock. Anyway, being part of that big plan had felt nice, nice just like the few evenings he passed out of the cooler, playing cards with Goff or listening to Ives talk about everybody.

After their first unsuccessful escape, Hilts felt that his newfound friend was more and more depressed. Had he knew what would happen, he would have tried harder to cheer him up. As he got to know more and more people in the camp, Ives became more silent more drawn back.

Weeks passed, and Hilts convinced the two other Americans of the camp to throw a party for the fourth of July. It would be a nice surprise for everybody, and he couldn't wait to see what strong alcohol would do to some of the stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen.

The fourth of July came, and with it the vodka fueled party. It had been fun and nice. Especially to watch some people get drunk while he was quite sober… maybe not so much, if he saw the state of Ives and Mac and… What he didn't saw were the guards searching the huts… He immediately sobered up when he heard Mac shout that they had found Tom, and while everybody ran toward the hut, he hesitated a second, trying to make eye contact with Ives. When he saw him, he was walking towards the wire, a lost expression on his face. Without thinking, Hilts screamed to the guards in the tower not to shoot and grabbed his friend by the arm, still in shock. What he had foreseen in that split second of hesitation had been avoided, thank God. They had lost the tunnel, but he had nearly lost his friend. And as he heard whispers of nonbelief and confirmation of what had just happened, he crept to his hut, trying to find someplace calm and a bunk for Ives.

He didn't see the hours tick by, staying at the side of his friend, now sleeping soundly, exhausted by the events of the day. Only when the guards came shutting the bolts at the windows did Ives wake up.

"How do you feel?"

"I don't know… Is it really over?"

Hilts took his hand and said:

"Yes and no. Tom was discovered but they opened up Harry."

"We're never going to succeed then…We're never going out."

"Yes we are. This crazy plan is going to work. I promise you. Now wait for me, I have something to do. I'll be right back.

He got out of the hut silently, and tiptoed in the dark to the SBO's hut. Once inside, he found Roger and Mac in Ramsey's room, speaking in hushed tones.

"Good evening sirs"

"Good evening Hilts. May we know the reason of your visit?" asked Ramsey.

"Yes. I changed my mind." He turned, facing Roger "Sir, let me know the exact information you need. I'll help you." A grey, satisfied smile crossed the three faces.

The conversation continued for a few hours, and Hilts felt like his head was going to explode from all the information.

Between the blitz-outs and the cooler, Hilts' summer became autumn, and he shared his time between doing work for the organization and cheering up Ives, who worked with one of the tunneling teams, but was still depressed.

He tried a few other escape attempts during the autumn, but the snow soon covered the land, finishing the escape season until spring. Roger said they'd be all going out in March.

It was the longest winter of his life. He taught Ives how to play baseball. Their fake papers and civilian clothes were finished and handed to them. Their numbers in the tunnel were sorted. Spring came finally, and the tunnel was reopened as they lived what they hoped to be their last weeks in the camp.

The day of the escape, Hilts felt that there was an electric undercurrent running through the camp, sparkling everywhere. Nervousness shone in everybody's eyes, yet they seemed calm, unmovable, like the goal was so close nothing could change the outcome.

He spent the afternoon sitting beside Ives, remembering everything that had happened in this camp, all the months, weeks and days passed between the cooler and the barren land, and the hours that had yet to come, those hours during which the last card would be played… As he watched the sun redden, the Scot's soft voice interrupted his thoughts:

"Hilts… do you think we will come out if this… alive?"

He hadn't answered, his eyes lost beyond the wire. This night, they would be the firsts out of the tunnel. The firsts ones to go. He felt a twinge in his stomach. Fear. Excitation. Anticipation for all the lives at stakes. Whispers of the war's end were coming with the letters, but time had stopped for them. It was now or never.

He gave his friend one of his rare true smiles as an answer, and they went back in their hut, hoping to sleep away their last hours as prisoners.

Hilts was forced out of his remembrance by the descent of the plane. He gathered his belongings and walked in the airport, searching for his little friend.

"Hey Hilts! "Shouted an accented voice behind him, making him turn back.

"Missed me?" asked the American, a broad smile lighting his face.

"I sure did!" answered Ives, the two men exchanging a hug before walking towards the Scot's car.

Once they arrived in his flat in the center of London, they spent the evening drinking whiskey and beer, reminiscing together that fateful night of 1944.

The excitation as Hilts opened the tunnel. The last handshake with Roger and Mac, the disappointment, the horror when they realized they were twenty feet short of the woods. The few seconds of thinking in the rancid air…

And then the freedom. The wind on their face, reminding them of flying. Their decision to head for Switzerland, stealing a motorcycle to go faster -Hilts still felt the death grip of Ives' hand on his waist as they rode- then the fence, Hilts screaming that they were going to have to jump, Ives screaming back that they were going to die.

But they hadn't died. The jump had left them both injured and stunned, but they had succeeded. And it was all that mattered. The flight home from Geneva had been peaceful, and waking up in England had felt unreal. Yet, a few weeks later, when the news had come in via the Red Cross, they couldn't believe them. So many names… 77 had escaped. 50 had died… They had cried that day, and again five years later, the alcohol helping remember the good times with those who had left.

They woke side by side on the couch this dawn of March 24, 1949, with watery eyes and a slight headache. As they left the flat to go to their flight that would take them to Zagan to the memory ceremonial, where they were going to see other survivors and revive it all over again, Hilts looked at his friend and said:

"Ready to face the world?"

"Together?"

"Always."

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was so long! (so much longer than expected!) and very hard to translate ( and God how I suck at finding titles) ! I hope there aren't that much mistakes. If there are, shame on me ^^  
> I give cookies to my reviewers :)


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